<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Linger by moreculturelesspop</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863518">Linger</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop'>moreculturelesspop</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Car Sex, Childbirth, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, F/M, Female Castiel/Male Dean Winchester, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbending, Genderswap, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Human Castiel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Is a Midwife, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, graphic birth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:48:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24863518</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I would very much like to have a baby with you, Dean Winchester.” </p><p>Nine months of a pregnant Cas, an overly prepared Sam and a terrified Dean. Pure Fluff.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>147</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Linger</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warning for graphic pregnancy and childbirth descriptions.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h1>Linger</h1><p>“Dean, have you ever thought about having children?” she asks into the flat plain of his tanned chest. She’s tracing his tattoo, her hair fanned out like a cape.</p><p>“Why would I think about it?” he replies, eyes tired and barely able to focus on the ceiling, let alone her words.</p><p>“I think you would be a wonderful father,” she responds, nestling her face into his neck, still a little breathless from her recent orgasms.</p><p>“Doubt it, Cas.” It goes quiet, and he feels his body slacking and his eyes closing in the darkness of his room. Cas won’t go to sleep alongside him, she’ll wait for him to fall asleep before sneaking back to her own. She worries Sam will come to Dean’s room and find them naked and entwined. He feels her move, sitting up in bed. She leans over him and kisses the corner of his mouth, a delicate gesture she would never do anywhere else but in the darkness of this room.</p><p>“I would very much like to have a baby with you, Dean Winchester.” His eyes bolt open and he looks at her, leaning over him with thick brown hair cascading down her face.</p><p>“You what?”</p><p>“I would like to have a baby with you. Now I must go, please sleep.” She leans in and kisses his forehead before climbing out of bed. She leans over and slides into her gray panties, she always refuses to wear the sexy little lace things no matter how many times Dean hints at it.</p><p>“You can’t spring that on a dude and walk out! That’s big!”</p><p>“Is it?” she cocks her head to the side. “I thought it was normal for a woman to indicate she was ready for a child when in a relationship.” A relationship? That was another concept he later had to unpack with the angel. “I am sorry if I have upset you.”</p><p>“It’s not that Cas. It just surprised me. I didn’t know you thought about those things.”</p><p>“This body, now it’s human, I think it craves a child. It feels empty and unfulfilled, like it can’t be whole unless it has a child. It’s a strange sensation. I cried at seeing Gilly with the baby in <em>Game of Thrones</em>. I was jealous, I wanted to know what that felt like.” She was broody, the now human woman was getting broody, something he had never considered when this thing started long ago in the purity of purgatory.</p><p>“Can you even have children?” he’s sat up in bed, fully awake.</p><p>“This vessel has already birthed a child and I menstruate, so I imagine so,” Dean knows he too old to turn his nose up at the word ‘menstruate’, but he does so anyway. “Now I am a human, I imagine it would be like normal pregnancies. I have been rebuilt so my body is much healthier than many women this vessel’s age.” She buttons up her white shirt and Dean wishes she was one of those women who would roam around in his shirt, the flannel hanging from her small frame.</p><p>“Where are you going?”</p><p>“I must leave the room before I sleep. It was your rule.” She always threw that back at him. Sam very rarely woke him up, and if he did, it was in an emergency. He wouldn’t particularly care if he found Cas curled up on his brother’s chest, but Dean knew the conversation that came with it would be difficult, complicated. He’d have to admit some truths he probably wasn’t ready for.</p><p>The next day, Sam immediately notices the tension in the kitchen, he’s making eyes at Dean like he knows that Dean’s big mouth has got him into trouble. Dean is making breakfast and Cas is arguing with the coffee machine, in a three-day bad mood. Sam says good morning as he enters and neither respond. They sit together on the bench, an automatic gesture, neither making eye contact. Cas gets up and leaves first after finishing her coffee, giving him the dirtiest look on the way out.</p><p>“What did you say?” Sam asks with a sigh over his cereal.</p><p>“Why is it always me? She’s probably just hormonal!”</p><p>“Dean, it’s always you!” Dean scoffs, but he knows he’s right. They go on the hunt without Cas, he spends the whole ride complaining about the angel and her mood swings. “She’s still getting used to being human,” Sam defends. She’s a little bit too used to it, he thinks.</p><p>                                                                                                                                            ***</p><p>Cas is led on her tummy scrolling on his laptop when he gets home from the hunt. She ignores him as he slides into her room, trying to make as little noise as possible. His hair is still wet from the shower and his t-shirt is sticking to his damp body.</p><p>“Standard werewolf,” he tells her with a yawn. She ignores him, her face lit up by the laptop screen. He sits down next to her on the bed and runs his hands down her back. She’s wearing her white shirt and panties, with nothing else. “You okay?” she makes an affirmative noise but still refuses to look at him.</p><p>He crawls up her body, running his hand up her bare thighs and over her thin cotton panty-clad ass. He slides her messy ponytail to one side of her neck and kisses the bare skin on the other side. She makes a purring noise and finally gives in to him. He slides his hand under the shirt to her bare back, she rarely wears a bra in the bunker, as distracting as that sometimes was, and runs circles around her smooth skin. Her back arches against his sweatpant clad crotch and her shirt rides up. He kisses the newly visible pale skin on her back and hears her moan his name under her breath.</p><p>He kisses her core through her panties, already feeling the wetness. He hooks a finger in the material and moves it to the side to gain access to her. He kisses her centre gently before slipping a tongue inside her. She bucks her hips up and he uses the opportunity to grab hold of her hips and lift her up to his face. He licks at her folds and clit until she is face fucking him. He laps her up, enjoying the way she is falling apart under him. She bundles up wads of sheet in her fist as she rides out an orgasm. He lets her fall to the bed, panting with her comedown.</p><p>He rests his hand on her ass and feels the way her body rises and falls. “Did I upset you last night?” she asks, between pants, face buried in the bed.</p><p>“Cas,” he starts. He rolls her onto her back and sees her flushed face. He sits on his knees and tries to read her reaction. He lifts her onto his lap and sits back against the headboard. “You just took me by surprise.”</p><p>“I’ve seen how you are with kids on hunts. You raised Sam, didn’t you? You brought him up and he’s a good man. Jack, Claire, all those children you saved. Dean, you are such a caring man. You would make a wonderful father.” He can’t pretend the time he spent with Ben weren’t some of the greatest days of his life.</p><p>“I can’t give kids the normal life they should have. Your child Cas, deserves better than this world, of waking up and worrying that this could be your last day on Earth, or worrying that one day we’ll go out to hunt and not come back whilst our kid waits at home for us.”</p><p>“Dean,” she whispers, cupping his chin “They will be a Winchester.” She means it as a compliment, but to him, it’s a curse. Sure, the world may not be ending, but monsters will always live in the shadows, threatening their existence.</p><p>He can’t help but picture their children. They’ll have her blue eyes, his tanned skin and freckles.  They’d be tall and tilt their head when they wanted to ask a question. He’d teach them to cook, and she’d tell them stories of heaven. Sam would make them eat healthly and they’d turn their nose up in disgust. Eileen would teach them sign language and Jody would cook their favorite foods. Then one day Cas and their child would be waiting at him, waiting for that bunker door to open and it never would. She’d identify his dead body and tell their child that daddy would never come home.</p><p> </p><p>                                                                                                                                        *****</p><p>She doesn’t scream when she hits the ground, the bullet lodged into her shoulder. He hopes Sam can land the shot as he runs to Cas’ side. His priority would always be Cas in these situations.</p><p>“It burns,” she says, looking up at him quizzically. He scoops her up in his arms, carries her out of the warehouse and gently lowers her down onto the backseat of the Impala. Sam is following him, gripping tightly onto his gun. Dean rips the flannel from his back and uses it to put pressure on the wound. He’s thankful the teenager was a terrible shot, it’s shallow and hasn’t hit anything too deadly.</p><p>“Need to stop the bleeding,” he tells her. “Hold this and push on the wound as much as you can, yeah?” he rolls her over onto her side, in case she loses consciousness on the drive back to the bunker. She holds his shirt to her shoulder, grimacing in pain.</p><p>“Did she get hit?” Sam asks from behind him.</p><p>“Yeah,” he replies in a shaky voice.</p><p>He can barely concentrate on driving to the bunker, hearing her whimpers from the backseat. “Cas, you still with us?” he keeps calling to her, dreading the time he gets no response. She stays conscious the entire drive but the flannel she’s clutching no longer has white and blue checkers, the blood is starting to drip down her wrists by the time he pulls into the garage.</p><p>“Yes Dean, please do not worry about me,” she responds through gritted teeth each time.</p><p>He’s seen a lot of things he wishes he could unsee his life. Having to lay Cas out on their war room table and stuff a cloth in her mouth whilst he removed the bullet was one of the worst. She grimaces but makes no noise as he peels her blood-soaked shirt from her body. She’s so little and childlike in her humanness that he often underestimated her. She was a soldier, a warrior, an angel, she could handle wounds and pain. He stitches her up as carefully as he can and buries his head in the crook of her neck.</p><p>“Dean, I will be okay,” she reassures him. He laughs because it should be him reassuring her, not vice versa.</p><p>                                                                                                                                     *****</p><p>Dean wakes up with Cas curled up on his chest. He wasn’t going to let her out of sight again, not let anyone ever hurt her again.</p><p>“Morning,” he whispers into her hair.</p><p>“Should I go?” she mutters, still half-sleep.</p><p>“Never,” he whispers. Fuck the rules, fuck Sam seeing them together, fuck anything coming between them. He would give her anything she wanted, a home, a white picket fence, a child, if it made her happy. “You shouldn’t have been on that hunt.” It wasn’t even a monster, just a sadistic teenage boy who got off on ripping out the organs from young women.</p><p>“I’m not a child, Dean. I can handle myself. I promise I won’t get hurt again,” she says, looking up at him with fierce eyes. The dressing on her back haunts him, she was human now, she couldn’t heal herself, she didn’t have the same strength, and he needed to keep her safe.</p><p>“I won’t let you go on hunts once you get knocked up,” he tries to say it as casual as possible like he wasn’t agreeing to a life-changing decision. He doesn’t regret the words when her face transforms into a huge smile. She settles back into his chest, nestling into his warmth.</p><p>“Do you mean it? Or is this because you feel bad I was shot?”</p><p>“I mean it, but I don’t want to be that couple who have a timetable and diets and all that shit. I will happily fuck you more but I ain’t giving up booze.” He wishes he didn’t have to be such an asshole, wishes he could say that it’s because he loves her and for a second their life together flashed before his eyes and he would rip the world apart to make her happy.</p><p>He should have known better than to think Cas would go with the flow. The next morning she’s downloaded an app to her phone and is trying to count her cycle over breakfast.</p><p>“Should I ask Eileen?” she asks, trying to fill the details into the app. “You should avoid using a laptop, heat is bad for sperm. Also, please limit your coffee intake.”</p><p>“Please do not speak to Sammy about this.”</p><p>“You doing okay, Cas?” Sam asks as he walks in, followed by Eileen.</p><p>“Yes, I am trying to calculate my menstrual cycle. Dean is no help.” Sam looks at Dean confused, and he just shrugs. Eileen sits opposite her and tries to help her with this new terminology, with the assistance of Google.</p><p>His love for Cas is tested over the next few days as she scolds him for his coffee intake, for his choice of clothing and snatches the beer from his hands. “I am just concerned for your health, you’re not getting any younger,” she tells him in front of Sam, pouring his coffee down the drain. Sam laughs over his own coffee and Dean wishes she’d left him in hell.</p><p>He’s mad at her until she disrobes in his room and reveals a set of red lacy lingerie. The tiny panties cut high and make her pale legs look even longer and the bra pushes up her modest cleavage. “Do I look okay?” she nervously asks. “I know you like women who look like this.” She had admitted to him, before she was human, between their first kiss in purgatory and their first time together, that she was concerned that her vessel was not enough for him. Her vessel didn’t look like those women in magazines, her skin pale and her breasts a B cup, her ass small and round, but he loved it none the less. No woman would ever match his angel, and that had bugged the hell out of him for nearly a decade.</p><p>“No,” he tells her before getting off his bed. “You looking amazing.” He kisses her neck and down her chest, over her new swell of cleavage and down her flat stomach and the lace of the panties. She bats his mouth away from her panties. He runs his hands up her legs and to her small waist before lifting her up and into his arms.</p><p>“I hope our child has your eyes,” she tells him. He’s not sure if the idea of knocking her up is terrifying or arousing. Years of fucking in motel rooms and sneaking women in whilst his dad slept upstairs, had taught him to be quiet. Cas followed suite, gently moaning into his shoulder. The sex has always been good, but as a human, it was especially good, she was no longer afraid of hurting him and overpowering him. As much as he wants to deny it, having sex with someone meaningful was far more pleasurable than hooking up with random women. He had slept with women who could bend their legs in the air, would moan obscenities into his ear, but he’d take Cas’ breathy little sighs over any porn star fantasies.</p><p>“Do you think I’ll make a good mother?” she asks afterwards. It’s all she can think about these days, all she talks about. Every time he opens her laptop he discovers she’s been looking at medical websites, learning the best ways to conceive a child.</p><p>“Of course,” he tells her, running his fingers through her hair, “You’re smart and wise, and kind. You’ll love that kid more than anyone has ever loved a kid before.”</p><p>“That is impossible,” she says, her voice thick with tiredness. “Should I go?”</p><p>“Stay,” he says, wrapping his arms around her. “Sam thinks I’m keeping an eye on you after the gunshot wound. Told him you were having bad dreams.” Sam would totally buy Dean and Cas naked cuddling together as a way of protecting her from bad dreams, right?</p><p>“I do have bad dreams,” she says, nestling into his shoulder.</p><p>“About getting shot?” he hadn’t thought to ask her of the aftereffects. He and his brother had so many injuries it was as common as getting a bruise in their world, he hadn’t thought about it being her first gunshot wound as a human.</p><p>“No. I have suffered from deeper wounds than that. I think of losing you. I think of losing our child. I think of Naomi forcing me to murder you. I think of how I felt when I believed Amara killed you, of how you felt when I was killed by Lucifer. The idea of you burning my body and praying for my life.”</p><p>“Fuck,” he breathes into her hair. He holds her closer, trying to avoid touching her slowly healing shoulder wound. He writes the word soulmate into the bare skin of his arm.</p><p>He’s fairly sure their child is conceived in Baby, he likes the irony of it. Sam is asking questions, head down in his books, and he is struggling to find the time to be with Cas. He’s up all night reading lore and trying to fix the boiler. After all that, he can’t listen to Cas talk about ovulation and cervixes.</p><p>He takes Cas for a drive, tells Sam they need to clear their heads. He drives them up to Monument Rocks, his idea was to go for a walk and talk but Cas has mounted him before the keys are out the engine. She’s rough, pulling his hair, and biting his neck. Her hormonal urges have taken over. She pulls him down on top of her, her legs hooking around him. He fucks her like it’s the first time, all the need and want built up over the years.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>I</strong>
</p><p>“Why is it so cold in here?” he asks. Cas’ room is far colder than anywhere else in the already chilly bunker.</p><p>“It helps the sperm production,” She has a line of vitamins on her desk and he feels bad that she’s put all the work in and he can’t even kick his coffee habit. He lies down next to her on the bed. “You smell differently,” she says, audibly sniffing and rolling into his side.</p><p>“Same aftershave as always,” he tells her, hooking an arm under her neck. “What’s up?” she’s frowning and rubbing her stomach under his t-shirt.</p><p>“I think my period has started.”</p><p>“Hey,” he says, “It takes time. Remember we said, if it happens it happens.”</p><p>“It’s all I can think about it. My body craves to be filled with a child, it’s quite an unusual sensation. I wonder if the vessel felt like that when Claire was conceived?” She leans in to kiss him but pulls away with a wrinkled nose. “You taste like coins.”</p><p>“Are you sick?” he asks. Sam shouts his name, and he never gets to finish the conversation.</p><p>When he gets back from the hunt, he finds Cas throwing up in the bathroom. “Apparently I don’t like bacon anymore.”</p><p>“Looks like your and Dean’s friendship is over,” Sam jokes before leaving the pair alone.</p><p>“Will you tell him?” she asks, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, “Ever?”</p><p>“It’s complicated,” he replies, joining her on the cold tiled floor. She tilts her head to the side, waiting for his answer. “I’m no good with this relationship shit.”</p><p>“You’re scared.” She sits on the floor opposite him, her feet resting between his legs.</p><p>“Of course I am.” He says laughing darkly.</p><p>“You’re scared that something bad will happen. Saying it out loud will not jinx it.”</p><p>“I know,” he sighs, before rubbing his face. “I’m sorry, I’m shit at this. I have no idea how to do all this, relationships and love and-”</p><p>“As do I,” she interrupts. “I have no concept of human relationships. I have no concept of being a human. I have always been fond of humanity, but I never expected to feel so deeply. To love you as I do. We do not have to have a so-called chick flick relationship. You have never lived by the standards of others before, why should you commence now?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he sighs, wiping his eyes. He leans in to kiss her, but she turns away to throw up into the porcelain bowl again.</p><p>“Being human sucks,” she cries into the toilet.</p><p> </p><p>II</p><p>“Dean,” she giggles against him. He’s enjoying the empty kitchen, with Sam having gone out on an errand. He kisses her neck, pulling her hair out of his way. She’s trying to make coffee, but he can’t help but wrap his arms around her. He slides her hands up her shirt and to her modest breasts, especially thankful for her hatred of bras. She slaps his hands away, “They hurt.”</p><p>“Didn’t you like already have your period?”</p><p>“They happen more than once,” she tells him with an eye roll. He opens the fridge to grab the deli meat and closes it to find Cas hurling into the sink. He pulls out some crackers from the cupboard, and waves them at her.</p><p>“Going to have to take you to a doctor soon.”</p><p>“I’m going to sleep.” And the conversation was over. He couldn’t give her a child and she hated him for it. He knew he would be an inadequate boyfriend, life partner, whatever the fuck they were. Why did he think this time would be different?</p><p>Sam forces him to check on her mid-afternoon. She’s asleep in her bed, curled up in a little ball, her head barely visible over the comforter.</p><p>“You doing okay?” he asks, sitting beside her on the bed.</p><p>“I think I should do a pregnancy test,” she says. He expects her to sound more excited, instead, she sounds scared. Those blue eyes peer out over the top of the comforter, they look sad and scared.</p><p>“You think you might be?” He leans over and nuzzles her, feeling her soft skin against his cheek.</p><p>“I have had some of the symptoms,” she murmurs. He strokes her dark hair, pushing it out of her face. “But I have also had symptoms of menstruation.”</p><p>“This is good, right?”</p><p>“I do not want to get my expectations up.”</p><p>He tells Sam he needs to get more dressing for Cas’ bullet wound. He didn’t realize the task would be so difficult. There are millions of brands, all claim to do the same thing in very different ways. Should he get the classic positive/negative, something with a date, something with a color, something that you dipped in urine, a digital one? His head is swimming at the options. “Can’t go wrong with Clear Blue,” a woman walking past with a stroller tells him.</p><p>“Um, thanks?” he says with a nervous smile.</p><p>“Your first?” he looks at the kid in the stroller, must be around two, and nods “Can’t imagine how my husband would have dealt with it. Good luck.” He thanks her and picks up all the Clear Blue tests they have. He also picks up some dressing, some gauze and some bandages for cover and places them on top of the tests.</p><p>“I think you brought too many,” Cas says, when he empties the bag onto the bed.</p><p>She locks herself in the bathroom when she takes the test. “I’ve had my face in there,” he tells her through the door. “I’ve seen it,” he whispers.</p><p>“Cas still unwell?” San asks, passing him in the hall.</p><p>“Yeah, she’s still working out the human diet.” Sam moves on to the gym without a second thought. He leans against the bathroom door and waits for what seems like an hour before the door opens. She’s holding one of the sticks up, a little pink plus.</p><p>“I… I can’t be,” she stutters. Suddenly they’re lying on the bathroom floor surrounded by twenty positive pregnancy sticks and she’s sobbing into his chest. He’s not sure if the tears are happy or sad, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. He carries her tired, sobbing body to his bed.</p><p>“Hey, hey,” he says, climbing under the sheets alongside her, fully clothed.</p><p>“This was a terrible idea, I will be a terrible mother,” she cries. He takes her in his arms and soothes her, rubbing circles on her back. He leaves her to sleep, once the tears stop, wrapping her up in his sheets.</p><p>“Cas doing okay?” Sam asks, asks as he grabs a beer and sits down in the war room.</p><p>“She’ll be okay.”</p><p>“You think we should take her to the doctors?”</p><p>“She’ll be okay,” he repeats, enjoying his first beer in weeks. He felt a sense of relief wash through him. He and Cas were going to start a family, and he was finally going to get the apple pie life he could only dream of, without having to give up anything he had worked for.</p><p>Cas spends most of the next two weeks throwing up, sleeping and peeing. Google informs him this is all normal. She also goes up a cup size, which would be great if her breasts weren’t so damn sore. He can’t touch them but he enjoys the way her collection of white shirts strain across her chest. The sex is incredible, she’s not often in the mood, but the one time she is he has to cup his hand over her mouth to stop her waking up the whole of Lebanon.</p><p>
  <strong>III</strong>
</p><p>“Something is definitely up with Cas. You don't think she’s acting really strange?” Sam asks.</p><p>“Define strange when it comes to Cas?” he responds.</p><p>“She’s throwing up all the time, she’s peeing all the time, she’s always tired. She just seems to be off all the time,” Eileen adds. Cas appears just in time for the couple to not want a proper explanation for Cas’ recent symptoms.</p><p>“Sit down,” he says, guiding her to the kitchen benches. “I’ll get you a ginger ale, you doing okay? You want fruit?” Apparently he was one of those expectant fathers who panicked. “Apple, orange, banana?”</p><p>“You hate fruit,” Sam laughs.</p><p>“Cas’ sick.”</p><p>She gratefully takes an apple and cuts it up into slices on a plate. “I feel much better, no sickness or tiredness today.” She was wearing his shirts now, nothing of her own was fitting her. She didn’t look pregnant and he couldn’t feel a bump, yet she was too bloated to fit into any of her shirts.</p><p>She starts sleeping in her own room again, a cold compress usually used for wounds pressed against her breasts. He knows she is embarrassed by the gas, the heartburn, the bloating. “You fell in love with my angel version,” she explains, “I am not any of things I once was.”</p><p>“Hey,” he says, cupping her face. “I fell in love with those blue eyes, fell in love with the woman who has saved my life more times than I can count, who tilts her head when she’s confused, who doesn’t understand pop culture references and sarcasm. I fell in love with you. When I think you can’t get sexier, your tits grow and you start carrying my child.” She bursts into tears and it’s not quite the reaction he was expecting.</p><p>The day that she faints, Dean thought his world had ended. He follows her around the rest of day, in case it happens again. It just causes an argument and Cas nearly slaps him for treating her like she was dying. “Women have been doing this for years,” she hisses at him.</p><p> After that day he starts reading week-by-week symptoms of pregnancy, working out Cas was around ten weeks, so he could know what to expect. Like the debilitating migraines that made her start working in the library with the lights low. He also learned what a placenta was and immediately regrets clicking the link. He downloads an app that tells him what size their child is, what symptoms to expect and how to ease them. He was going to be everything John Winchester was not.</p><p>“You smell disgusting,” she tells him every time he eats meat. He’s started eating his beloved burgers in Baby and eating two strips of gum before entering the bunker. He regrets his delay straight away because when he comes in Cas is sat with her head between her knees.</p><p>“Breath,” Sam says before taking deep breaths along with her. Dean nearly trips down the stairs to be at her side. “She’s really lightheaded.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” she mumbles. “Moved too quickly.”</p><p>Sam beckons him over and he follows him into the hall. “I think Cas might be pregnant,” he can hear himself taking in a deep breath “The sickness, the strange food, the dizziness, she’s always so tired. She spent weeks throwing up, yet looks to have put weight on. Eileen thinks the same, and women tend to know this stuff.”</p><p>“Are you calling Cas fat?”</p><p>“Dean!” he scolds “You know? She is, right?” Dean nods solemnly, “Wow,” he laughs nervously “Wow,” he runs his hands down his face. Dean doesn’t know what to say, he’s confirmed it and he knows he’ll have to talk it out at some point, but not today. He walks back to Cas, who still had her head between her legs.</p><p>“You doing okay?” he asks, crouching down at her side.</p><p>“If I lift my head up I may vomit.”</p><p>“Sam knows,” he says, rubbing up and down her thigh. “Asked me if you were pregnant. I had to confirm it.”</p><p>“You are not claiming it as your own?” she murmurs.</p><p>“Give me time,” he begs. She looks up at him with hatred.</p><p>“Fuck you,” she growls. “I’m tired, think I will get some rest now.” She gets up and marches to her room, she had a surprising amount of energy when she was pissed at him.</p><p>Sam takes the liberty of booking Cas in for an appointment at the hospital for an ultrasound. “Is it safe?” she asks when Sam tells her.</p><p>“We’ll make sure nothing happens to you. On my life,” Dean assures. He places his hand over her tiny bump, barely noticeable for those not looking for it. “Both of you.”</p><p>Dean realizes he knows nothing about Cas or her vessel. He has to guess most of the fields on her medical form. Cas remembers little things about her vessel, she knows when Joanna had her first period, she knows she has no allergies and doesn’t believe the vessel has anything medically wrong with it. She says this is her first pregnancy, presuming her grace would have healed all signs of birthing Claire.</p><p>“Mrs Winchester?” the nurse asks. The idea that Cas was his Mrs Winchester warmed his heart. “And the father?” Sam turns his head to look at him quizzically, like this was the first time he had considered the father of Cas’ child.</p><p>“I can go, if-”</p><p>“I got this,” he replies, squeezing her brother’s shoulder. “I hate hospitals,” he explains to the nurse who must have presumed there was some polyamorous relationship going on between the trio.</p><p>Poor Cas has to go through a string of tests, removing as much bodily fluid as they can from her. She smiles and takes all the jabs and needles with as much dignity as she can. She pretends this wasn’t her first smear test and glares when Dean goes to make a joke about her being used to bigger things going up there.</p><p>The nurses tell her she’s 14 weeks pregnant and was doing well. He can hear her sigh of relief, he never knew she was so scared at things not being okay. She talks about some bleeding and cramping, which was again all news to Dean. The nurses inform her it’s all normal and totally okay.</p><p>He doesn’t really know how he would feel at hearing his child’s heartbeat. He wasn’t expecting the tears to flow as much as they did. Cas has to embarrassingly talk him down and hold his hand as the little pulses echo through the room. It’s Cas' turn to cry when they finally see their child. Too early to identify the gender, but they were happy and healthy and perfectly normal.</p><p>“We made that,” he says, gripping onto her hand. “They’re ours and I will never let anything happen to them,” He kisses her forehead tenderly. “A Winchester.” </p><p>“Already a protective daddy,” the nurse coos.</p><p>Sam stands up with a look of concern when they re-enter the waiting room. “Is everything okay?” They both have tears running down their face and Cas looks a little shell-shocked by the whole experience. Dean nods to quickly ease Sam’s worries.</p><p>“It’s all good, Sammy,” he says, in disbelief.</p><p>
  <strong>IV</strong>
</p><p>Cas very much looked pregnant, with a round little tummy peaking out of her shirts. He could feel the change in her body as she slept in his arms, the new curves forming around her hips and waist. The second trimester was like having his Cas back. She started yoga and could stay awake for more than an hour, plus he could eat burgers in the bunker without her throwing up.</p><p>She starts to sit with her hands resting under her belly, like she’s holding up the small mound.</p><p>“It hurts,” she mumbles, when he asks if she’s okay.</p><p>“Shit, Cas, you gotta tell me these things,” he says, sitting down beside her.</p><p>“It’s normal. I’m growing a human,” she barks, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s these hormones.” She rests her head on his shoulder and entwines her fingers in with his.</p><p>The stomach and back rubs lead to some of the best sex of their relationship (once he Googled that it wasn’t going to hurt their child). Every part of her body becomes aroused with just a quick touch. Her large breasts crave his mouth, just brushing against her clit makes her shudder and her orgasms leave her panting for an hour afterwards.</p><p>They fuck in Baby whilst waiting for the pizza, they fuck on the Dean cave sofa whilst watching <em>Kill Bill</em>, they fuck in the kitchen during their 3 am leftover food feasts. She rides him until she’s gasping and he’s seeing stars. In fact, they find it hard to finish a film without touching each other.</p><p>
  <strong>V</strong>
</p><p>“Does the father know?” Sam asks after his coffee.</p><p>“What?” Dean responds, mouth full of cereal.</p><p>“The father. Was it a random guy? Or a partner? Maybe another angel? Has she told you?” Dean audibly swallows the cereal, his mouth suddenly dry. “Does Cas, like, you know date?”</p><p>“If she doesn’t want to tell us, none of our business.” He might have loads of kids running around in flannel and great music tastes, if they didn’t want to find him it was none of their business.</p><p>“Doesn’t he have the right to know? Shouldn’t he be going to the appointments and holding her hair when she throws up?”</p><p>“I’m doing it,” he snaps, slurping his coffee in hopes of gaining some moisture to his mouth. “And she is fine!”</p><p>“I just don’t want you getting too attached.”</p><p>“What?” he slams the coffee cup down with a bang.</p><p>“You’re acting like it’s your kid and what if the father turns up and wants to be in its life? What if she leaves the bunker and they move in together? I know you and Cas are close, but she was obviously with someone else. You think we should talk to her about it? What if it wasn’t consensual?”</p><p>“Cas is grown-ass woman,” he reminds her. “She can have sex with whoever she wants.” And she did. Him. Their first time was in purgatory but they pretend it wasn’t. Purgatory was raw, animalistic, brutal, and the sex matched it. He would pound into her and she would bite his shoulder, he would leave fingerprints on her wrist and nibble at her lip until it bled. He realized after, that the sex wasn’t because they loved each other, it was because they needed each other. Their first time, their real first time, was after he came back from being a demon, when she thought he was lost to the Mark of Cain. She had laid by his side and he had gently kissed her, years of longing glancing unraveling in their lips. They had made love, afraid the other would soon be lost to the darkness. Whatever Amara held over him was never compared to those moments with Cas, he looked at her post-climax and finally understand their profound bond.</p><p>“Can you at least speak to her about the father? Just if he’s human or an angel?”</p><p>“He’s human,” Dean responds quickly. This is the moment where he tells Sam he loves her and she loves him, and they made something beautiful together. “She told me, he’s human, just a one time thing. He won’t be around.” His mouth feels dry. He gets up and leaves swiftly, not even finishing his coffee.</p><p>Cas is trying to research, but she keeps touching her belly, brow furrowed. “You gotta tell me if you’re in pain,” he sighs at her. He takes a seat next to her and places a hand on her shoulder. She ignores him and carries on eating the pineapple, her main craving.</p><p>“I think our baby is moving. Not kicking but like having bees in my stomach, swarming around.”</p><p>“That’s probably the gas,” he snorts, earning a disgusted look from her. “Your back hurts, doesn’t it?” He can see the way she is sat in the chair, too straight with her legs parted to make room for the sizeable bump.</p><p>“Of course it does, it always does,” she snaps, slamming the book closed and tipping her head over the back of the seat. He gets up and rubs her shoulders. She scoots forward on the chair and gives him access to her back. He rubs her back and receives a purring motion for the gesture.</p><p>“Sam asked me about the father. Your, our baby’s father. I said he was human.”</p><p>“Dean!” she threatens. “You have to tell him. He will be an uncle.”</p><p>He rubs a spot he knows she loves in her lower back. “I will.”</p><p>He spends a lot of time rubbing her back and belly. He found the round, hard swell of her stomach rather sexy, but Cas couldn’t be unattractive to him if she tried. She wakes up repetitively at 4am with leg cramps and can’t sleep unless Dean rubs her back and hips. She looks up at him with worry in her eyes, concerned that she wasn’t good enough and he’d look back at her with a smile, and a kiss and let her know she would be enough and more. It became a routine he was fond of. Sam starts offering massages to her during film nights, she graciously turns his offer down.</p><p>The first time he feels their child kick, he is in the library. Her bare feet are on his lap and he rubs her swollen ankles. “I’ve never seen your wear polish before,” he says, looking at the glossy red toenails.</p><p>“I’m told that spending some time pampering yourself is a good way to boost confidence and make a woman feel good about herself.”</p><p>“Cas, you’re beautiful.”</p><p>“I’m fat, I have swollen feet, I have heartburn and I’m constipated all the time.”  She also started crying after sex, something Dean still hadn’t got used to. Either way, he’d still burn down the world if it made her smile.</p><p>“And yet you’re still the most beautiful woman in the world.” He sees Cas’ eyes fill with tears and then they widen, her hand racing to her belly.</p><p>“Cas,” he croaks. Cas grabs his hand and places it against her stomach.</p><p>“Kicking,” she gasps. He can feel a small flutter against her belly, but it’s enough to make tears pool in his eyes.</p><p>It was becoming very real very quickly.</p><p>VI</p><p>Cas can never sleep long enough. She has taken to getting up early and doing yoga with Sam. They both claim they know what they’re doing and that the baby will be fine. He also starts to buy vitamins and talk about iron and protein. Dean can’t help but feel like Sam would make a better father, he hopes one day he can experience it for himself. Sam knows all the right terminology, knows all the cures for her symptoms, knows everything Dean doesn’t.</p><p>He can deal with all the foot rubs and morning leg cramps. He can deal with the sickness and the groans in pain. He’s happy to rub her belly with moisturizer to keep stretch marks at bay but talk of supplements, birth plans and folic acid he can’t cope with.</p><p>“I wish I could make this all go away for you.” The migraines, the clumsiness, the blurred vision, the never-ending stomach pains, it was so unfair. She doesn’t reply, she just buries her head into his shoulder. If he could take all her symptoms away from her he would, nature was unfair to women.</p><p>He reads all the books he can, learns them like he’s learning a new lore. He wishes his mother was here, she helped Kelly Kline with her labor and she would make this all a bit clearer. He reads the book in bed, Cas tucked up on his chest half-asleep telling him to change the page when she felt it irrelevant (‘<em>Don’t read about episiotomies, they’re gross’ I’m not having a C-section’</em>).</p><p>The day they buy baby furniture is the day Dean loses it. Cas, Eileen and Sam have read every review of every crib every made, they speak in another language in the shop. It’s all so overwhelming, all the bottles and pacifiers and clothing sizes. He just nods and carries everything Cas wants to buy. He doesn’t remember Sammy having this much when he was little. He bursts into tears when Cas finds a little Led Zeppelin onesie. He has to sit in the car and have a moment as the other three checkout.</p><p>“You’re going to need a car seat for the Impala,” Sam reminds him as he grabs a beer from the fridge.</p><p>“I’m the father,” he murmurs into the neck of the bottle.</p><p>“I know,” Sam responds, patting him on the back before sitting down opposite him.</p><p>“Did Cas tell you?”</p><p>“I know you, Dean. If some random guy knocked Cas up and refused to be around, you’d have marched out of the bunker and murdered them.”</p><p>“That sounds like me,” he smirks. “I, er, I, love her. I love her a lot.”</p><p>“I know,” he repeats. He wonders if he knows where he put his belt, it’s been lost for days now, since Sammy was suddenly so wise to his life. “How long?”</p><p>“Love? Always,” he clears his threat “Purgatory was the first time. There was nothing but instinct and my instinct was to love her. After she hated me, I hated her. Then we slowly found our way back together. I guess.” </p><p>“You’re going to be a great dad.”</p><p>“Are you sure?” he asks, picking at the label of his beer bottle.</p><p>“You were the best Dad I could have had.”</p><p>
  <strong>VII</strong>
</p><p>When Cas can’t sleep, he places his headphones over her large belly. He’s relieved to discover that Zeppelin soothes the 3 am kicking sessions enough to let Cas go back to sleep.</p><p>He lays awake with their child, he thinks it’s going to be a son, not that it matters. He tells them stories of how he met their mother, how he tried to stab their mother when he first met, how she saved him and how he saved her. When Cas is asleep, he tells the bump that she’s his soulmate. Tells him about all the family he’ll never meet. About all the things they’ll do when they grow up.</p><p> They take it in turns to count kicks, ten an hour being the optimum number. Cas tends to monitor mornings and Dean in the evenings.</p><p>“Does it hurt?” he asks, feeling the strong movements in her stomach.</p><p>“Everything hurts,” she sighs, not looking up from her book. “The kicks are just like the sensation of hunger. Sometimes it feels like butterflies, but that’s usually the hiccups.” Dean melts at his child hiccupping and causes butterflies to erupt in her belly.</p><p>“Turn your ears off, daddy is going to do something not exactly PG13 for mummy,” he whispers to the bump.</p><p>“I want to have it at home.” Cas had avoided hospital appointments since the first scan. They both had to admit that this wasn’t an arrangement they wanted too many people to know about. Dean and Cas had enemies in all the wrong places. Apparently her, Sam and Eileen had already worked out a home birthing plan.</p><p>“If anything happens…” he says with a  gulp.</p><p>“Women have been doing this for years,” she says, stroking his cheek. “When I first met you I was so sure I would never feel anything. I was a soldier. I never thought I would feel something as pure as the love of a good man like you. Something as powerful as the love I feel for you and our child.” He has to bury his head into her full breasts to stop the tears flowing.</p><p>One morning Sam wakes him up with a shake. Dean jolts up, sensing the worry in Sam’s furrowed brow and the empty spot beside him in bed.</p><p>“Everything is okay, but Cas is a little upset.” Dean practically runs through the bunker, throwing on his dead man dressing gown as he goes. Cas is in bits at the breakfast table, tears running down her puffy face.</p><p>“What the fuck happened?” Eileen is comforting her, an arm around her, making hushed noises.</p><p>“I thought our baby was gone,” she sobs. Eileen has to move out of the way so Dean doesn’t trample her.</p><p>“I’m here, I’m here,” he hushes her, holding her tight to his side.</p><p>“I couldn’t feel the baby, I counted and the baby wasn’t moving,” she sniffs.</p><p>“I gave her some juice and cereal and they perked up,” Eileen reassures him, now standing behind the couple. “Just a bit of low blood sugar.”</p><p>“Just like his dad, naps until food is about,” Sam jokes. Dean can’t help but look at his brother with pride.</p><p> </p><p>He drives them up to Sioux Falls to tell Jody the good news. She immediately understands the situation when she sees Cas without her trench coat, her bump proudly on display under the navy sweater.</p><p>“Congratulations,” she tells him. He doesn’t ask how she knows, it appears he and Cas hadn’t been as subtle as they hoped over the years. He can’t believe this is his life, watching Jody rub Cas belly and share parenting advice.</p><p>“I’ve never been happier,” he later confides in Jody, helping her wash the dishes.</p><p>“You deserve it.”</p><p>“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he adds.</p><p>“No one ever does. It’s hard, it’s really hard, but it’s the best thing you’ll ever do. You won’t always get it right but that child will be the most loved, most worried about, most protected kid of all time.” He looks back at Cas, talking to Claire who was taking the news pretty well.</p><p>“Yes, I suppose this will be your younger sibling,” she tells Claire.</p><p>“I love her,” Dean says, thinking out loud.</p><p>“Glad you finally realized it.”</p><p>He will later text all his queries to Jody, all his concerns that he felt too stupid to ask Sam and Cas. He’s lucky that Jody just humors him.</p><p>
  <strong>VIII</strong>
</p><p>The first time she has a Braxton Hicks contraction, Dean nearly breaks his ankle running across the bunker to be at her side. The second time, after a quick Google, he passes her a glass of water and offers her a seat.</p><p>At this point, with all the aches and pains, swelling and insomnia, Cas hates him. He can’t put his arms around her without being told how much she despised him. “You’ve done enough,” she snarls.</p><p>“Sam, she hates me,” he finally confides in his brother. Every time he walked in a room Sam, Eileen and Cas were looking at baby names, working out a birthing plan, hell one time he walked in and they were watching birth videos together. She’d rather Sam carry her books, rather hold Eileen’s hand as the waves of pain ripple down her body, rather sleep alone than by his side.</p><p>“No, she doesn’t,” he reassures him.</p><p>“She can’t even look at me, she won’t let me touch her, she looks at me like I killed her guinea pig.”</p><p>“She’s scared. Scared you won’t want her after the pregnancy, scared something will happen and you’ll blame her, scared that you’ll leave her.”</p><p>“Why doesn’t she tell me these things?” Sam looks at him like he’s asked the stupidest question. “It’s Cas, Cas knows how I am. I don’t do feelings and relationships.”</p><p>“She isn’t quite herself at the moment. She needs some reassurance. She’s scared.”</p><p>He drives her to Monument Rocks the next day. They both needed to get out the bunker, anyway. “Our child was conceived here,” she says, like Dean wouldn’t remember.</p><p>“I thought it seemed familiar,” he jokes, before taking her hand in his. “I know I don’t tell you this enough, and I suck at being a boyfriend or whatever, but you Cas, are the greatest thing to ever happen to me. This child, us,” his voice cracks. She smiles, she knows, but for once in his life, he’d like to be able to say it out loud.</p><p>“I love you too, Dean,” she says. She leans in and gently kissing him, one hand on his shoulder, the other on the swell of her belly. He helps her out the car and they rest on the hood of the Impala.</p><p>“I wish Mom was here,” he breaks the silence, his voice cracked.</p><p>“I was very fond of Mary,” she says.</p><p>“I wish she knew that I was okay, that I found someone.”</p><p>“She knew,” Cas links their fingers together. “She thought I was your girlfriend when we first met. I told her that you meant a lot to me.”</p><p>That afternoon he installs a car seat in the Impala and cries just a little bit.</p><p>They argue about the nursery. Cas has an issue with everything he does, he lets her pick the paint and the décor and the theme, yet she still finds something to be mean about. His painting skills are patchy, he makes too much noise when climbing the ladder, he doesn’t read the instructions on the mobile, he puts the crib at the wrong angle. He knows Cas is mad that she can’t do it herself, at most he lets her paint the wall (as long as no bending down or ladders are involved).</p><p>“Let me be overprotective,” he snaps, refusing to let her use the power drill. They theme the nursery around stars and planets, he often wonders if Cas misses it all. Sam paints stars to the ceiling and Eileen makes little mobile of a galaxy.</p><p>
  <strong>IX</strong>
</p><p>Cas starts to waddle around the bunker like a little penguin and Dean can’t help but laugh. “I have a human being lodged into my pelvis,” she snarls. She’s so cute with her round face and scrunched up nose, he can’t help but kiss her.</p><p>“I don’t think I have ever seen you kiss in public,” Sam smiles.</p><p>“I should probably tell you now, we’ve had sex,” Dean jabs at his brother, earning an eye roll from Cas. Dean follows Cas’ waddle to the bedroom. Cas sits on the edge and sighs, clutching her belly and taking in a deep breath.</p><p>“You doing okay?” he asks, leaning against the door frame. She leans forward and takes another wobbly deep breath. “What can I do for you?”</p><p>“Make it stop hurting?” He sits down next to her on the bed and makes circle motions on her back. “My nails are chipped.”</p><p>“Now that I can do.” He helps her get comfortable against the wall, a stack of pillows behind her back. He repaints her toenails the glossy red shade she had recently favored, taking time to do two coats. It’s pretty much like repainting a car. He stops when she groans in pain, not knowing whether to grab her heavy stomach or her sore back. He paints her fingernails, kissing her knuckles with care as the lacquer dries.</p><p>“It’s normal,” she scoffs as he looks at her with worried eyes. He makes her lay down, a pillow between her legs, and watches her nap. All the years she had spent watching of him and now he was making sure she was drinking water, sleeping at least six hours and had remembered to eat. She sleeps with her back to him so he can rub her back. He misses her breaths against his chest and waking up to those blue eyes staring at her. Sometimes in purgatory, the feeling of her body next to his was the only thing that felt real, it didn’t quite feel the same with Benny. It was the feeling of her head on his chest, injured on the sofa that made him realize that if he never admitted his feelings for her, he would be an idiot.</p><p>He finds her cleaning the fridge at 4 am, he remembers his mother nesting in the days before Sam was born. Cleaning lampshades and behind cupboards Dean wasn’t sure he knew existed. The bunker has never looked better, and he feels guilty for letting her do it, but it was an itch she had to scratch.</p><p>“Come to bed, Cas,” he whispers.</p><p>“Just a minute,” she says, head in the fridge. “Can’t sleep.”</p><p>“I can stay looking at your ass all night.” She looked gorgeous with this newer figure, voluptuous curves and a fuller face.</p><p>“When was the last time this place was cleaned? We haven’t even baby-proofed it properly.” Sam had created a new armory to hide their weapons, a few hidden for emergencies in places a baby couldn’t reach.</p><p>“You know it’s a Winchester family tradition to shoot your first gun before you turn six, right?” He wishes he was joking.</p><p>He is woken up the next day by the bunker’s alarms, Cas is still asleep beside him, a wall of pillows beside her. He rubs her hips and earns a groan in response, so he leaves her to enjoy the rest she was somehow getting. The red light on the bedside table says 4 AM. He throws on a t-shirt and grabs his gun from under his pillow, the lights in the hall deep red.</p><p>Sam is already in the war room, fully dressed in his workout gear, a gun in hand. “Is Cas okay?”</p><p>“Asleep. The first time she’s actually slept the whole night, and it’s when the alarms are going off.”</p><p>“You stay with her,” Sam tells him. “I’ll try to find the override button.”</p><p>He doesn’t need to go to her because Cas soon waddles out of her room, hair stuck down to her head with sweat. “Go back to bed, we got this.”  </p><p>“I’m awake now,” she mumbles, rubbing circles on her belly, through the pink cotton vest. “Are we under attack?”</p><p>“No,” he quickly replies, he doesn’t know, he hopes not, “I’ve got it under control.”</p><p>The alarms and the flashing red lights don’t go away, Sam and Eileen can’t fix it and Dean doesn’t want to leave Cas side. He notices her gripping the top of the counter as she makes tea, hears her pants as she sits beside him in the war room. She seems off, even by pregnant Cas standards, she looks like she’s about to cry into her tea. When he helps Cas up, a toilet break needed, he finds out an old travel Connect Four he used to amuse Sammy with. Sam and Eileen are running around in the background until the alarms are finally muted.</p><p>“What is this?” she asks when she returns.</p><p>“A distraction,” he replies. He looks up at her and sees her red face, she’s been crying. She sits back down beside him. They play a few games and he lets her stop to breathe out her pain. She rocks her hips and it seems to ease. He loves watching the way her head tilts and she pokes her tongue out as she plays. Eileen makes her some toast, which she picks at and gives the crusts to Dean.</p><p>She goes to the bathroom again but doesn’t sit when she returns. Instead, she leans over the back of the chair and lets out a guttural moan. This is it. The Big Moment. She was going to have their baby in their locked-down bunker, possible under attack.</p><p>“I’m fine,” she gasps, clinging onto the timber frame until her knuckles go white. The long moan that follows breaks his heart.</p><p>“You’re in labor! How long have you had these pains?” he stands at her side, his hand over hers, still clutching the chair.</p><p>“A few days, it’s fine, they were fine,” she reassures him. “I didn’t want to worry you.”</p><p>“Days!”</p><p>“It’s normal.”</p><p>“What can I do?” He stands behind her and rubs her back, stabilizing her when she leans over the chair with a contraction. They would talk later about her keeping secrets from him, but right now he knows she needs all the support he can muster.</p><p>“Is it happening?” Sam asks, flashlight in hand. Cas nods before leaning over again. “How close are the contractions?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she gulps. “About every seven minutes.”</p><p>“Okay, when it gets to four you have to let us know,” he reminds her. The lights suddenly come back on and Dean can see how red and splotchy Cas’ face is, before the lights trip again leaving the bunker in a red glow.</p><p>“I think my water just broke,” she gasps. There a large wet patch on her gray sweatpants (his gray sweatpants).</p><p>“She’s been having contractions for days,” he tells Sam. Sam isn’t surprised at all, he looks away with a guilty look on his face, “You told him, but not me?”</p><p>“She didn’t want to worry you. It can take days before active labor starts. We kept an eye on her.” Dean has taken his hands away from Cas’ back and she groans at the loss, he wants to shout at his brother from hiding a pretty important factor in his life away from him.</p><p>“What about this lighting situation?”</p><p>“The coast is clear. Eileen thinks a circuit has tripped. Nothing to worry about. Just worry about Cas, make sure she moves around, stays hydrated and goes to the bathroom regularly.”</p><p>“My back hurts,” she breathlessly tells him. The adrenaline kicks in and he’s reassuring her, rubbing her back again. Eileen makes a hot water bottle for Dean to place against Cas’ back. “Tell me about those cowboys you like? Doc and Billy and Black Jack.”</p><p>“You sure you don’t want to sit down, lie in bed?”</p><p>“I’m good here,” she says, rocking her hips side to side, gripping onto the back of the chair. “Distract me. Tell me about your Dad, about your Mom, about anything except what’s going on in this bunker.” He smiles and starts to tell her about the Hole-In-The-Wall gang. He stops when she moans and starts to rub her hips, firmly gripping them as she leans into her contractions. Eileen sits down and holds Cas’ right hand. “I lost my mucus plug earlier. A little blood, but I think is as it should be.”</p><p>“You’ll see your baby soon,” she says, stroking the back of her hand.</p><p>“You’re doing great,” he says, holding the hot water bottle to the small of her back.</p><p>“Eileen, can you take me to the bathroom?” she asks. Dean tries not to be hurt that she feels more confident with someone she has known for a much shorter period in time.</p><p>“Are you okay to walk?”</p><p>“It’s good for her to walk around, gravity doing its job,” Eileen tells him, helping the ex-angel stand up straight. Dean really knows nothing about what’s happening and what is going to happen.</p><p>He shuts up and does anything Eileen and Cas ask of him. She paces up and down the war room for what seems like hours, stopping when a contraction hits to grip onto the back of a chair. He continues to tell stories about his favorite films, his favorite songs, embarrassing stories about Sam, stories about Bobby and Jo, he even tells some stories about purgatory.</p><p>“Purgatory is when I knew she was The One,” he says, the first time out loud. Sure she knew, everyone knew he had pined for years. They would have watched the world burn just as long as the other was protected. She looks up at him with a smile before kissing him with a surprising amount of passion. On the next contraction, Cas leans into Dean and rides the wave of pain. Dean places one hand on her back and the other on her shoulder so he can time the contraction. The alarms start to go off again, just as Cas lets out her loudest moan yet. Sam has one eye on the door, hand gripped on the gun.</p><p>“They’re getting close,” she groans into his black cotton t-shirt.</p><p>“You got this,” he responds, rubbing her back.</p><p>“You should go to the bathroom,” Eileen says, gently holding her arms. “It can help speed everything up,” she adds, more for Dean’s benefit than Cas’.</p><p>“If something goes wrong, we’re stuck in here,” he says, rubbing his eyes, once Cas is being led away from the war room. “Is the air going to run out?”</p><p>“No, the ventilation is fine. The system has picked up some signal and has locked us down. We’re pretty stuck in here now. With Cas, we just have to let nature take its course, she’s strong.” <em>Nothing good ever happens to him</em>, is all he can think. He hears Eileen yell and he runs to the hall to where Cas was leaning against the wall, palm pressed flat against the tiles for support.</p><p>“It’s really close now,” Eileen says, a hint of panic in her voice. Cas reaches out to him and he wraps his arms around her body, whispering little comforts. In his room, their room, she squats down, still holding his hand and he mimics her. As a contraction hits she crumples into him, her head resting on his left shoulder. The alarms finally go off and all he can hear is her primal noises.</p><p>“Anything you need, I’m here.”</p><p>“I need you,” she groans, clinging onto his hands until they start to go numb.</p><p>“You are the bravest, strongest woman I have ever met, and I know some warriors,” he says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He brings her head up from his shoulder so he can look at her and those blue eyes. She looks tired and scared. He cups her face in his hands. “I love you.” She crumples against him again, groaning in pain.</p><p>“My back,” she grunts. He lets her get on all fours so he can rub her back and massage her hips. There is a wet patch on her pants and some blood around the crotch. He pulls at the waistband of the pants down to reveal stained panties. He carefully removes the pants, avoiding touching her belly. “I need to push,” she grunts. She sinks to her elbows, her ass up in the air, and pants.</p><p>“Sam!” Dean yells. “Says she needs to push!”</p><p>“Wait as long as you can, yeah?” Sam tells her, out of breath from running around the bunker. Dean carries on rubbing circles on her back, moving to massage her hips when a contraction hits. It seems to be the method that eased Cas’ pain as much as he could.</p><p>“How do you know all of this?” he asks.</p><p>“I read a book,” Sam bluntly replies. “Keep panting, Cas,” Eileen is running a flannel over Cas’ sweaty face and Dean feels totally inadequate. “Whatever you’ve got going on now, snap out of it, this baby is coming soon and she needs you!” He nods, dumbfounded. Cas lets out an animalistic groan, burying her face in her elbows.</p><p>“Castiel, is it okay if we remove your panties?” Sam says, words he never thought his brother would say to his partner. She ignores him, breathing into her arms, so Dean takes that as some form of consent. He peels down the panties, trying to ignore the mixture of stains in them.</p><p>“Less than four minutes,” Eileen tells them before comforting Cas through her contraction. Cas is slowly sinking to the floor and Dean has to hold on to her hips to keep her from totally collapsing. He helps her roll onto her side and moves to her head so she can use his thigh as a pillow.</p><p>The couple has a whole birthing kit in a bag in the corner. They lay a plastic shower curtain under her and pile clean towels up on the bed. Dean helps Cas sit up when he sees her struggling to lift her chest from the floor. She leans against his body, her body cold and slick with sweat. He firmly massages her hips, trying to counteract the pressure from the contractions.</p><p>“I can’t do this,” she cries, tipping her head back onto his shoulder. After the Mark of Cain he promised she would never be in that much pain because of him, watching her scrunched up face was breaking his heart. He could give as many back massages as possible, but all he wanted to do was take her pain away.</p><p>“Take a deep breath and hold it in your lungs, put your chin on your chest, and pull your legs toward your chest,” Sam tells Cas. Dean’s worried Cas is hyperventilating, she’s shaking and she feels like she has a fever coming on.</p><p>“Look at me Cas.” Before he could admit his feelings he would send her longing glances across the room, glances to confirm she was okay, glances to say sorry, glances to say that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She looks up, and he gives her a glance to say that she has it, that she is strong and beautiful and that he loved her. She locks eyes with him and he knows that she believes him.</p><p>“I have to push,” she says with gritted teeth. She grabs both of his hands tightly in hers.</p><p>“Push on the next contraction.” Cas’ nearly breaks his hands, squeezing them both. Eileen wipes her brow tenderly as Sam parts her legs.</p><p>“You’re doing amazing,” he says. “You can do this.”</p><p>“It fucking burns!” she says before screaming. It’s unnerving to hear her so vocal, even when injured and dying she never screamed or wailed. Eileen gives her water, encouraging her to drink slowly from the straw. Cas’ face is almost burgundy in shade, sweat dripping from black strands of hair.</p><p>“Slow down,” Sam cautions her. “Keep panting.” Cas, like the good soldier she was, follows the orders. She barely has any time to regroup before she is pushing again, panting out their child. “I can see the head.” Time blurs into Sam telling her to push and pant, Eileen reminding her to drink and Cas’ animalistic noises. It smells like war, fluids staining the sheet she was led on. All Dean can do is tell her she’s amazing and hold her hand. Anything he researched or read throughout the pregnancy has gone, he just needs Cas to be okay. “The head is out!” He can see Sam is cradling something between her legs. He leans over and sees a bloody mound. Cas reaches down and lovingly caresses the head of their child.</p><p>“You’re so close, you beautiful, strong woman,” he says, tracing shapes on her hand with his thumb.</p><p>“You got to push on the next contraction.” Suddenly time slows down, she leans into him with a slack body and Eileen is rubbing her lower belly. The shoulder is stuck but Eileen grabs a knee and he takes the other, and with one long push, and their son is born. Sam quickly wraps him in a clean white towel. He places him on Cas’ chest, he’s blue and quiet. She rubs him gently with his towel, hoping to wake him up.</p><p>“Dean,” she croaks. His heart drops, he thought this would be a win but now their child was lifeless and struggling to breathe. She rubs his nose and gently blows on his face, gaining a scrunch of the nose and a grumble. “Come on, Robert,” she says. She rubs him again, holding him lovingly against her chest. “Wake up for mommy.” She gently blows into his mouth and earns a loud cry. Sam and Dean both let out audible sighs of relief, tears in both their eyes.</p><p>“Robert, eh?” he says, smiling at his son. Robert looks up at him with huge blue eyes.</p><p>“Yes, like the singer in Led Zeppelin.”</p><p>“I have never loved you more,” he laughs. He leans in and kisses her. He’s going to tell them he loved them both every day, they would never go to bed feeling under wanted or unloved. Cas groans and dips her head back against him. For a second he is terrified that another child is coming before he smells blood.</p><p>“That is gross,” Sam mutters, as the placenta slides out of her. Dean cuts the cord and looks down at Cas cradling their baby, it felt right like the universe has aligned right for once.</p><p>Dean can barely let Robert out of his sight. He has big blue eyes that look mesmerized by everything, he has long limbs that wriggle around when they try to dress him, he has Cas’ adorable nose and Dean’s mouth. He loves being held by Uncle Sammy, the man who helped him into the world, he loves the stars on the ceiling of his nursery. Dean does all the night feeds, sits with him as he cries, changes diapers and walks around burping him. He couldn’t have more respect for Cas. The woman who threw up for nine months, who barely slept for six, whose breasts hurt and back seized up, who gave up her body with their son. He feels an idiot for ever doubting he would ever love their son, anything that was a part of him and Cas was going to be perfect.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments are welcome, adored even.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>